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Alex hasn't been by the 'office' yet, so now seems as good a time as any to meet some of the 'team'. He really has no idea what to expect, all Jessica told him was there was a few others, and one of them was named 'David', or 'North'. Possibly 'David North', but he's not jumping to any conclusions. Alex lives in an apartment on the fourth flour, having just moved in not more than a week ago. The apartment is a hole, to say the least, but at least the door closes. Arriving at 2C, he pushes the door open and steps inside. "Hello?" He calls inside, announcing himself to any who might be here, so he doesn't just seem like he's breaking and entering. Though, if the door doesn't actually shut, it's not really 'breaking', and entering isn't a crime in and of itself.
*
Ava isn't really much of an associate. She's met…some of the people. She's done some investigating. But she's not usually just hanging around the office. So it's a lucky thing that, for once, she's actually here. Of course, she looks more like someone who's broken in than someone who actually sort of works here. In jeans, a t-shirt, and an oversized coat, she certainly doesn't look on the up and up. She's in the kitchen when Alex arrives, rummaging through the drawers, though at the sound of an arrival she sticks her head out into the main room. "Hello?" she counters.
*
"Looking for Jessica," Alex says, stepping further inside and walking toward the kitchen, and the only other person who seems to be here, or at least the only one who spoke up. When he manages to get her fully in view, Alex gives a tilt of his head, and a skeptical expression. "Are you supposed to be in here?" He doesn't seem /too/ concerned, though; frankly, there doesn't seem to be much in here of value to steal. More importantly, is there coffee? "You waiting for Jessica, too?"
*
Ava quirks a brow at the question. "Jessica's out right now," she says, not actually answering either of them. There's no smell of coffee here, but there's a pot on the counter. Not that it looks particularly clean. "Someone's supposed to be here a little later, though. I…don't know if there's even a system for leaving messages here." She gives him a curious look, then brushes her hand off on her coat before offering it over. "I'm Ava."
*
Alex shakes Ava's hand, firmly but not too much so; she's not a man, after all, gotta be a little more delicate. "Alex," he counters with his own name. "Jessica said I should come by some time, meet the team. I'm guessing you're not the receptionist, then?" He smirks, and steps back out to the main room to look around a bit. "You mind making some coffee? Been up all night, practically," he asks, though like most men of the era, the request is merely formed as a question, not really intended as one.
*
"I'm not entirely sure what I am here, but it's not the receptionist, no," Ava smirks. "Or the chef. Machine's there, I found coffee in the top right cabinet," she gestures, hopping up to sit on the edge of the counter. "I'm not sure if it's any good, but I don't think coffee can go bad. I've gotten the impression that the place has been, uh. Neglected. Sort of."
*
What the hell? Alex actually stops in his tracks when she flatly refuses to make the coffee. Girl in an office. Not making coffee. It's a world gone made. He frowns, and then turns back to the kitchen. "Alright," he says, sounding just a tad annoyed. The nerve. He /almost/ considers the whole 'do you know who I am?' angle, but decides against it. No way to make friends, if any time someone doesn't do what you want you pull the whole 'God of Fear' card.
Alex rummages a bit, and finds the coffee grounds, gives them a smell. Stale, but not unusable. He pours some into a filter, and puts the pot on to drip. That wasn't so hard, was it? "Sounds about right," he says to Ava, agreeing with the fact that the apartment isn't exactly well-kept. "I guess people have better things to do than keep house. Maybe she should hire a receptionist," he muses, smirking again. "So, Ava," Alex says, leaning against the counter opposite the girl while he waits for the coffee to brew. "What's your story? How'd a nice girl like you end up in a dump like this?"
*
Ava picks up on the irritation, the faintest smile flickering when his back is turned. One button located. Noted. Though she does watch the process of setting up the machine. Maybe she actually doesn't know how to make coffee. Wouldn't that be a twist?
When he comes back, her features are neutral again, legs swinging lightly against the lower cabinets. "Well, I'm not actually a nice girl, so that explains some of it," she drawls, amused. "But Remy introduced me to some of the people here. And they mentioned something I'm very interested in helping with. So here I am. You?"
*
Alex actually lets out a bit of a chuckle when she says she's not a nice girl. There's an off-colour comment there somewhere, but Alex manages to avoid making it, because propriety. Well, maybe not that exactly. But something like it. "Yeah, I'm not really a nice girl either. We should form a club," he jokes. Maybe not as funny as he thinks. "My story's pretty boring. Born in Iowa, dad is the God of War. Kidnapped by demons, brainwashed, de-brainwashed. Back to Iowa. Now I'm here," he says, and as true as it all is, might not be the easiest tale to believe. "Helped Jessica get some answers out some jerk the other day, offered to lend a hand finding that girl who went missing. Also, I live upstairs, so the commute is short."
*
Ava tilts her head at the story, brow arching slightly. She hasn't dismissed it yet, but she's got a few questions. Not that she asks any of them. "Charlotte," she says instead, nodding once. "David and I visited her school yesterday. It sounds like there may be more than just a missing girl going on there. What did you find out?"
*
"Yeah, Charlotte," Alex says with a nod. "I haven't found out much on my end. We got the name of the boyfriend. Jamie. Went back to the pinball hall and asked around some more about her, but nobody knew much else. Not that I was expecting much," he says with a bit of a shrug. "Planned to check out her church, and that soup kitchen she volunteered at. Was thinking I should bring someone along. Priests tend not to like me much," he says, making a bit of a face. "Actually, catholics in general. I blame the deeply ingrained sense of guilt and fear. Hard to resist it, sometimes."
*
"We heard the soup kitchen too," Ava nods. "And the boyfriend. The principal was firm on the boyfriend being the bad influence. But it turns out Charlotte isn't the only one who went missing. There were three other kids that she hung out with who also went missing. And according to an admittedly gullible cheerleader, when all four were together? People had a tendency to do what they wanted. I'm not sure we know who the heroes of this story really are."
*
"Huh," Alex says. The coffee machine makes a short but annoying buzzing sound to indicate it's done, and Alex pushes himself from the counter to look for a mug. "You want any of this?" He pulls two mugs out of the cupboard, and starts to pour one for himself, at least. "You're thinking the kids are mutants, then?" Alex being an example, he knows there are other possibilities, but mutants are a lot more common than Godlings. "Think maybe someone offed them, after the kids made someone do something they didn't want to do?" The heroes of the story could be the brave souls who finally stood up to some kids abusing their power in a horrific way, even. But let's not jump to conclusions.
*
"No thanks," Ava shakes her head to the offer of coffee. "But yes, it sounds like the others are mutants as well. Two kids whose families are close, understood to be mutants. Another young man with a tendency to pick fights who was presumed a mutant. And Charlotte, who claimed to be one, though no one seems to know just what she could do if that was the case. I've never heard of mutant powers actually combining like the cheerleader suggested, though."
*
The other mug goes empty, then. Alex turns again, mug in hand, and brings it to his lips. He practically spits it out. It's terrible. Awful. But it's still coffee, so he steels his resolve and chokes it down. One does not simply not drink the coffee. The fact that it's making him regret his life choices isn't exactly hard to read in his expression though.
"Anything's possible, I guess. Not exactly an expert on mutants, myself. Not too many where I come from. Or they kept it quiet." Which is probably the likelier case. "And in my experience, cheerleaders aren't to be trusted. Take it with a grain of salt." High school wasn't /that/ long ago, and there may have been some bad experiences with the popular crowd, which invariably includes cheearleaders and football stars. "May have been she was just jealous of the girl, looking for some way to hurt her more," he says with a shrug. "Girls can be vindictive." Because clearly he's the expert, even though there's one /in the room/.
*
"Mmm. If she'd said something like she was ugly, she didn't deserve her boyfriend, or she wore ratty clothes, I'd agree," Ava shrugs. "That people tended to do what a group of unpopular kids deemed freaks wanted? Too much of an outlier not to have a grain of truth to it."
She holds out a hand, an arc of blue electricity sparking between her fingertips. "That's what I do. I know a boy who makes red light come out of his eyes. But none of these have anything to do with someone else."
*
Alex gives a nod, and his eyes widen a bit with the display of power. "Neat," he says. "Bet that comes in handy on dates that aren't going so well." Alex takes another sip of 'coffee' and forces it down. Seriously, this is _awful_. He looks up at Ava for a moment, and then back down to his coffee, forcing down yet another awful mouthful. "Sounds like there's three more lines of investigation we should be pursuing, then, if the friends all went missing at the same time. Seems a bit foolish to focus on the one girl."
*
"That's what I'm waiting around here for," Ava nods, glancing back out toward the main room. "To let the others know what we turned up and see who was headed where next. The fact that none of the other parents have gone looking for their kids says something, too." Her feet swing, heels bumping against the cabinets as she thinks. "If some of these kids really could get people to do what they wanted, maybe that's why the parents didn't talk. That would suggest it was the other two who had that particular power."
*
"I could get the parents to talk," Alex says with a certainty in his voice. A sufficient amount of fear can usually overcome just about any other compulsion a person might feel. "Get me in a room with them." He puts the mug down, pushing it away from himself. "Good call, Turning down the coffee. I might have poisoned myself."
*
Ava tilts her head, a glimmer of amusement in her features. "There are ways of making people talk other than hurting them," she points out. "Besides, if they've been influenced, it's not going to matter if you hurt them or frighten them. They won't be acting of their own accord anyhow. And if they haven't been influenced, then either they have no reason to hide things - like they believe they know where their children are - or they are the real problem. In which case," she shrugs. "Beat away. But that's only one chance in…what, eight?"
*
"Respectfully disagree," Alex says, his smirk taking on a more devious edge. "If you can't scare the truth out of them, you're either not using enough of it, or you haven't found the right pressure points. Doesn't matter so much if they've been influenced, or controlled. Mortal self-preservation is more powerful than any mental control, if it's given a chance." He shrugs then, though. Hey, if your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail. "One in eight isn't bad odds, really. Might be worth a shot."
*
Ava rolls her eyes, hopping off the counter with a smirk. "Fear - the deep kind - is a last resort. You can't build up trust after that. You can't walk it back once you've taken that route. If you fail in other ways, you can always turn to fear. It's going to be there. Maybe stronger because they trusted you once, or they didn't expect it. But if you go there first, then there's nowhere else to turn."
*
"If it's a deep enough well, you can draw from it often," Alex says, noting the eye roll. "If we're going for trust, then it may be you're right. If we just want answers, I say the most direct route will get results faster. Time is money. Or in this case, life, potentially."
*
"People remember fear, too," Ava points out, leaving the kitchen to head for Jessica's desk. "And not in a good way. Scare the crap out of someone and they'll remember you did it. If someone else comes looking for you afterwards, they'll remember you, and they'll talk. Even if they don't talk, the person asking the questions will know why. They'll know you were there." She opens up the drawers, rummaging through.
*
"Wouldn't be of much use if they didn't remember," Alex says, shrugging and moving to follow. "Guess it's a difference in methodology. I'm not afraid to be remembered. People should remember Fear," he says, vocal capitalization intended. "Fuck it," he says after a moment. "I'm going to that church, see anyone there knows anything about that boyfriend. I'll try not to leave lasting emotional scars," he assures, though his tone of voice may not necessarily lend credence to his statement. "You can come, or not, if you have something more pressing," he offers.
*
Ava finally finds a piece of paper and a pen that hasn't dried up, scribbling down a few notes. "What, and leave you unsupervised?" she smirks as she looks up. "You might have to make yourself another cup of coffee or something. Who knows what could happen?" So she did decline on purpose. Brat.
*
Alex makes a face at Ava for that. "I'll just buy one," he says after a moment. There are plenty of coffee vendors on the street between here and there, right? There'd better be, or there will be hell to pay. He starts toward the door, glancing back at Ava, "If you're coming, great. I haven't exactly had a lot of experience with this kind of thing. My areas of expertise are more in the realm of slicing and terrifying. I'd hate to do either of those to a priest if I don't have to."
*
"Good plan," Ava nods sagely back at Alex, smile flickering as she steps out from behind the desk. "We're not slicing and terrifying people unless they need to be sliced and terrified. It's inefficient. But questions, sure." She pulls a ratty knit cap out of the pocket of her coat, pulling it over her head.
*
"I'll even leave my sword at home," Alex promises. And unless they go _all_ the way upstairs to get it, there's no way he can break that promise, seeing as he's unarmed at the moment. He moves to the door, opening it to allow Ava to step out first, because for all of his other faults, he's still a gentleman. Kind of.
*